Knitted fabric



Sept. 4, 1945.

"Ti'fiifi Tram" 0000000000 A. E. PAGE 2,384,392

KNITTED FABRIC Filed Oct. 28, 1942 4 Sheets-Sheet -1 .Zhven i'vr ALBERT E. PAGE 5 72215 a'Z'Z-or ey-s MMM Sept. 1945- AIE. PAGE KNITTED FABRIC Filed Oct. 28, 1942 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 RUBBER m RN Z? liz'ueni'ar 23,542, ALBERT E. PAG E 6 his aftorneys KNIT FIRST P 1945- A. E. PAGE 2,384,392

KNITTED FABRIC I Filed Oct. 28, 1942 4 Sheets-Shget 4 Tic u'LEl Jzven 7'07" ALBERT E. PAGE 6y his ailorrzeys atented Sept. 4, 1945 ED FABRIC Albert E. Page, Laconia, N. 11., amignor-to Scott illlams, Incorporated, Laconta, N. H., a

corporation of Massachusetts Application October 28, 1942, Serial No. 463,690

9 Claims. (Cl. 66-172) This invention relates to knitted fabric and hosiery made therefrom. More particularly the invention relates to self-sustaining tops for half hose and anklets. One object of the invention is to produce a self-sustaining top which will have a corrugated back that can grip the flesh of the leg or other part of the anatomy in a desirable manner. The fabric is a combined rib and plain course fabric.

In the drawings: a

Fig. l is a side view of a half hose stocking in which the novel fabric is incorporated in the t p;

Fig. 2 is an expanded view of the loop structure of a plurality of wales and courses in the novel top of Fig. 1, the fabric being knit from bottom to top in this view, and the view showing the back of th top where the course changes occur;

Fig. 3 is an expanded view of the loop structure of a plurality of wales and courses of a fabric according to the present invention, containing no rubber or elastic;

Fig. 4 is a diagrammatic view in vertical section through the sinker wales between an allplain wale and a rib-and-plain Wale, looking toward the former, of the fabric of Fig. 2, and taken on the line t-fi of that figure, the fabric in the present figure and Figs. 6, 7 and 8 being knit from bottom to top;

Fig. is a diagram showing in spiral form the coursesequence of the yarns and loop structure of the fabric of Fig. 2 when knit on a two-feed circular knitting machine adapted to knit plain or rib fabric;

Fig. t a diagrammatic view in vertical section similar to Fig. 4 but of the fabric of Fig. 3, taken on the line 5-6 of that figure;

Fig. '7 is a diagrammatic view in vertical section showing the stitches of a rib Wale of the fabric of Fig. 3;

Fig. 8 is a diagrammatic view similar to Fig. '7, showing the stitches of a plain Wale of the fabric of Fig. 3;

Fig. 9 is a diagrammatic view of a portion of the novel fabric being stripped oi? the leg, the

the indentations on the leg;

Fig. 10 is a photographic view in perspective of the inside of a fabric according to my invention, showing the protuberances;

Fig. 11 is an expanded view similar to Fig. 3 of the loop structure of a preferred form in which three courses of 1 x l rib alternate with one course of like stitches; while view showing the protuberances on the fabric and Fig. 12 is a view similar to Fig. 11 showing a fabric in which three courses of 3 x 3 rib alternate with one course of like stitches.

It has heretofor been customary to use rib fabric in the tops of half hose or anklets to make them self-sustaining, and it has been known to lay the rubber in between the plain and rib stitches in such fabric. Rubber has also been incorporated in plain knit fabric to produce horizontal floats of rubber on the inside of the fabric, which indent the flesh in horizontal lines. These exposed floats of rubber are objectionable in that they are liable to catch and break; and furthermore, bare or covered rubber is objectionable against the flesh. Again, these horizontal welts or lines which are made in the flesh by this type of construction are objectionable to many and tend to stop circulation of the blood. I have invented a fabric which avoids all these objections and is more self-sustaining than any of the hosiery above described.

In this application the novel fabric will be considered from the face or front, and the stitches drawn through to the face of the fabric will be called plain stitches, and the stitches drawn through to the back of the fabric will be called rib stitches. The courses containing bothrib and plain stitches will be designated as rib courses.

Courses containing stitches all drawn through to the same sid of the fabric will be designated as courses of like stitches, and if they are composed entirely of plain stitches, may also be called plain courses.

My novel knitted fabric has spaced rings of protuberances on the inner face as a means of holding the stocking in place on the wearer's leg. The fabric consists of at least two rib courses in repeated alternation with not more than two courses of like stitches. Preferably a rubber yarn is enclosed in certain courses, i. e., embedded in the fabric without coming in contact with the leg of the wearer.

The fabric has practically double the thickness of either rib fabric or purl fabric. In other words, the two thicknesses appear to be superimposed on each other, rather than a merging of the thickness of normal rib and normal purl fabric. The manner in which these thicknesses are concatenated, combined with the horizontal contraction due to the rib fabric and the vertical contraction due to the Links and Links fabric, produces the spaced horizontal rings of inward projections with gripping strength to make the top self-supporting. The rubber merely emphasizes the gripping effect, and because it is located in the rib or outer layer of the fabric, it is not present in the courses containing the multiplicity of projections which contact the leg.

Another feature of my invention is the fact that the markings on the leg are not deep continuous grooves but series of spaced horizontal rows of points or other indentations not deep enough to interfere with the circulation. They keep the stocking up even better than the solid line structures of the prior art.

I will describe an embodiment of the fabric in which rubber has been included in my novel top. The fabric to be described is shown in Figs. 2,4 and and has two courses ll of plain knit fabric recurring between two courses I2 of 1 x 1 rib fabric with rubber yarn I! laid in between the rib stitches l3 and plain stitches H of the rib course first knit. One kind of rubber suitable for this use is a rubber whichis capable of being stretched 265% and if five inches of rubber are used to encircle the stocking once, it will therefore be capable of stretching to 18%.". When fed to the knitting machine it is preferably under a stretch of about 123%, namely, to a little better than 12" in length. When relaxed, the fabric of the stocking top is about 2%" in diameter and consequently very little, if any, of the 123% stretch is left in the rubber when the fabric contracts to this normal width.

In plain knit fabric the new stitch is drawn through the old stitch toward the front or face of the fabric, while in the case of rib fabric the rib stitch is drawn through the previous loop from the front to the back of the fabric.

In the case of ordinary purl fabric having two plain courses recurring with two courses 01 stitches drawn on the rib side, these directions in which the stitches are drawn through the previous loops predispose the plain courses towards the back of the fabric and the Links and Links or courses of like stitches towards the front of the fabric. In my fabric, which combines plain courses with rib fabric courses, the attributes of rib fabric and purl fabric are combined in a particularly useful manner. Thus rib fabric, if of the plain 1 x 1 type (which is the sequence used in the rib courses in the fabric of Fig. 2), is double the thickness and half the width of a corresponding number of plain stitches. On the other hand, a purl fabric, while having the same double thickness that a rib fabric has, is half the length of the corresponding plain fabric. Thus in the new fabric we have the rib'effect tending to contract the fabric in a coursewise direction, and the purl effect tending to contract the fabric in a walewise direction. The ridges on the inside of the top are the plain courses II which bulge inwardly to the back of the fabric, probably because of the natural outward curl of plain fabric. It will further be noted that in the fabric of Figs; 1 and 4 the protuberances ill on the inside of the fabric have a saw-tooth shape in vertical section, with the sharp end pointing downward. This definitely is of help in holding the top up on the leg. A similar shape is found on the ridges I! on the outside of the fabric. When the fabric is expanded the inside ridges break up into a multiplicity of points or protuberances l8 in rows which are spaced vertically from each other about every fourth course, and it can be seen from Fig. 7 that it is these points which press against the flesh. These points l'8 are in the plain courses, 1. e., the courses in which all the stitches are knocked over on the same side, and they are in the wales I 9 where no rib stitches occur, 1. e., the wale which is shown in Fig. 8. It will be observed that the points l8 of the fabric which press against the flesh are stitches which are completely devoid of rubber-either bare or covered-so that the bad effects of bare rubber and the rubbing of covered rubber against the flesh are all avoided.

Basically rubber yarn is not necessary to Set my novel construction, although it improves and enhances it in quality considerably. In the specification and claims, where the word "rubber is used, it should be understood as including bare rubber, covered rubber and thread having rubber-like qualities of stretch and recovery.

Another advantage of my novel fabric is that it can be used as a turned-down cuff on hosiery or shirts as well as on a stand-up top, because it has a pleasing appearance on both sides. Thus basically it will be seen that the fabric coursewise is composed of one or more courses in which recurrent stitches are drawn to opposite sides, in alternation, i. e., recurrently, to one or more courses in which all the stitches aredrawn to one side only.

The manner in which the stitches arrange themselves in layers in this two-way contracted fabric is believed to be unique, and reference is made to Figs. 4, 6, 7 and 8. The concatenation of the various stitches brings the rib wales 20 of .of the fabric (see Figs. 6,7 and 8). positions of the adjacent stitches in the rib the fabric with rubber (Figs. 2 and 4), as well as the rib wales 22 of the fabric without rubber (Figs. 3, 6 and 7) toward the back of the fabric compared to the respective plain wales l9 and ii. Peculiarly enough, however, the rib courses l2 are nearer the face of the fabric than the plain courses ll. Presumably this is due to the interaction of the purl eifect with the rib effect. For example, while one of the plain stitches IS in the wales 20 containing plain and rib stitches in Fig. 4 forms the apex of the protuberance 18 which indents the leg, it is a plain stitch II in the rib course l2 in the plain wale i9 which forms the highest point of the ridge I! on the outside of the fabric. Thus plain stitches in the rib wales are nearest the back, the rib stitches in those wales and the plain stitches which are in boththe plain wales and courses are at intermediate levels, and the plain stitches in the rib courses are at the level nearest the face or outside The relative courses are carried over into the plain courses,

thereby breaking up the ridges on the back of is lost although the characteristic nubs projecting inwardly beyond both levels of adjacent stitches stillremain on the inside of the fabric. The loss of the characteristic external appearance in the broad ribs may bedue to the stitch tensions at the juncture of the rib and plain stitches not carrying over into a portion of the fabric which, considered alone, is only purl fabric.

The fact that there are three layers of stitches with the nubs standing out beyond the stitches of the next layer can be seen easily in the broad rib and plain stitches.

embodiments. In Fig. 11 a i x 1 rib is shown diagrammatically, and in Fig. 12 s. 3 x 3 rib is shown. The course sequence may also be varied. The nubs occur shortly prior to the juncture of plain and rib courses considered at the point where the knitting is changing from. plain to rib. For example, if the course sequence is 3 rib, 1 plain, the nub will be very close to the juncture of the rib If extra courses of either plain or rib are used, the rows of nubs or protuberances are further apart.

Preferred embodiments of my invention are shown in Figs. 11 and12. In the embodiment shown in Fig. 11, the wale sequence, 1. e. the rib structure, is 1 x 1, while in the embodiment shown in Fig. 12, the wale sequence, i. e. the rib structure,

is 3 x 3. The course sequence is 3 courses of rib to 1 course of plain. With this spacing, the nubs are an effective distance apart. Elastic thread I5, preferably rubber yarn of the type previously referred to herein, is enclosed in each group of rib courses. Another combination of rib and plain stitches would be 4 or 6 courses of rib and 2 courses of plain, although the protuberances are sharper with one plain course, the protuberances becoming mounds rather than peaks as the number of plain courses is increased from one to two to three. It will be seen that while the relative number of plain and rib courses and stitches can be varied in any desiredmanner, the effect of varying the wales is'different from the eifect of varying the courses. Also the effect of changing the number of rib courses is different from that of changing the plain courses. If all rib stitches are used in the plain course the effect is the same as plain courses as far as concerns changing the number of courses.

As already stated, the protuberances result from the concatenation of stitches regardless of whether or not rubber yarn is present.

This application is a continuation-in-part of my application Ser. No. 420,027, filed November 21, 1941. The method described herein is claimed in my application Ser. No. 457,765, filed September 9, 1942, which is a division.of Ser. No. 420,027.

of all modern circular knitting machines, about the only one which is capable of making this fabric is one employing double-ended needles, such as the double cylinder type of machine represented by the Komet machine. I have discovered that in knittin this fabric on such inverted cylinder type machines, if rubber yarn is to be used, a very much simplified method of feeding the rubber yarn is possible. This simplified method will now be described in connection with an inverted cylinder machine having a multiplicity of feeds. I

Let us assume that on such a machine we are to knit the fabric shown in Fig.2. In this case the spirals of the yarns in the finished fabric will be as shown in Fig. 5. The regular yarn at the main feed is shown as a heavy black line, and the regular yarn at the auxiliary feed as a light line. Where shown wavy, the course is a rib course. The rubber yarn is shown as a broken line adjacent the course in which it is incorporated. Let us assume that the knitting is at such a point that the next course is to be a rib course. When knitting rib fabric some of the needles are in the upper cylinder. The main feed knits the rib course 4, and at a point just after the knitting point of the main feed the rubber thread I! is laid in. The needles at the second or auxiliary feed then knit a rib course 3, thus completing enclosure of the fabric over the rubber. The rubber now lies in the fabric with the plain stitches on one side and the rib stitches on the other. After this second course of rib stitches has been drawn. the remainder of the needles are moved into the lower cylinder and two courses 2 and i of plain stitches are knitone at the main feed and one at the auxiliary feed. The rubber thread yarn finger is not moved from its feeding position. As the point where the yarn was last interlaced in the fabric progresses around the machine, the rubber stretches or is pulled out and retrieves either by its own elasticity or by a take-up arm. Retrieving due to the natural elasticity of the rubber is satisfactory for the ordinary situation. As the double-ended needles come around in the lower cylinder to begin knitting of plain stitches again, the rubber yarn finger is above the fabric, 1. e., it is in its regular laying-imposition, and since there are no threads extending into the upper cylinder from the needles, there is nothing to catch the rubber. It therefore floats across inside the cylinder until the next revolution of the machine, when, alternate needles having been transferred to the upper cylinder, laying in of the rubber begins again. Thus it will be seen that it is entirely the nature of the fabric being knit which determines whether or not the rubber is going to be incorporated in the fabric, and it is not only unnecessary to'move the rubber yarn finger at all, but the rubber can be floated across any part of the garment without any slack in that yarn. Furthermore it might be noted that whether or not rubber yarn is incorporated in the fabric, and whether or not it is going to be caught into any part of the knitting are determined entirely by what is happening at the active feed just preceding it, without. regard to what type of fabric is being knit at the other feeds. Thus. for example, as long as the needles knit in the lower cylinder at the main feed, the rubber yarn will not interfere in any way with the knitting of the fabric at any of the other feeds, and the rubber can be floated at parts of the garment where it is not used without requiring a cutter and clamp. These multi-feed machines with inverted cylinders and double-ended needles frequently are made with patterning devices for both cylinders, so that complete variety of fabrics can be obtained in either cylinder. For any given fabric, however, patterning devices are usually needed only in the one cylinder.

It might be noted that if rubber is being used inmy novel top, the method of feeding the rubber above described is different when the courses of stitches which are all drawn through in the same direction are made in the top cylinder at the feed just preceding the point at which the rubber is introduced. In this case the bights of yarn extending from the needles in the top cylinder to the fabric which is lying inside the lower cylinder cause the rubber yarnto float in front of-those stitches and not to become incorporated in the fabric until rib knitting is resumed at that feed. However, fabric made in this manner is useful when making turned-down tops for anklets or golf hose, as of course the rubber is incorporated in the rib courses as usual. In the case of a turned-down top there is no tendency for the floats to be distorted by snagging or catching when ,in,use, as they are inside the fold.

If a single-feed inverted cylinder machine is being used, the rubber thread would of course be present in each rib course, or the rubber would have to be cut and clamped for the rib courses in which it was not incorporated in the fabric.

I believe it is broadly new to combine rib and purl fabric in the manner I have set forth, to give the spaced rows of protuberances to which I have referred.

Many other variations which do not depart from the scope of my invention 'will occur to those skilled in the art.

What I claim is:

1. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of not more than two plaincourses in repeated alternations with not less than two or more than three courses of rib fabric, in combination with an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses, whereby spaced protuber-. ances are formed on the back of the fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustaining.

2. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of two plain courses in repeated alternation with two courses of rib fabric, in combination with an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses, whereby spaced protuberances are formed in the back of the fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustain ing.

3. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of one plain course in repeated alternation with three courses of rib fabric, in combination with an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses, whereby spaced protuberances are formed on the back of the fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustaining.

4. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of not more than two plain courses in repeated alternations with not less than .two V or more than three courses of rib fabric, said rib courses being composed of rib fabric not wider than 1 x 1, in combination with an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses, whereby spaced protuberances are formed on the back of the fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustaining.'

5. Aknitted'stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of not more than two plain courses in repeated alternation with not less than two or more than three courses of rib fabric, said rib courses being composed of rib fabric not wider than 3 x 3, in combination with an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses, whereby spaced protuberances are formed on the back of the fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustaining.

6. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of two plain courses in repeated alternation with two courses of rib fabric, said rib courses being composed of rib fabric not .wider than 1 x 1, in combination with .an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses, whereby spaced protuberances are formed on the back of the fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustaining.

7. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composedof two plain courses in repeated alternation with two courses of rib fabric, said rib courses being composed of rib fabric not wider than 3 x 3, in combination with an elastic thread enclosed in each group of rib courses,

whereby spaced protuberances are formed on the back of the. fabric in the plain courses to make the top self-sustaining.

8. A knitted stocking having a self-sustaining top composed of one plain course in repeated alternation with three courses of rib fabric, said rib courses being composed of rib fabric not wider than 1 x 1, in combination with an elastic Y self-sustaining.

ALBERT E. PAGE. 

